One week ago the first batch of entries for the upcoming SpeedFest 2016 at Cordele, Georgia’s Crisp Motorsports Park was released by Champions Racing Association (CRA) officials. The list included the usual names that one would see at SpeedFest such as NASCAR Camping World Truck Series driver John Hunter Nemechek and Bubba Pollard, but it also contained one name that many Super Late Model fans might not be familiar with.
Stuart Dutton won the track championship in the Outlaw Late Model division at Crisp Motorsports park last year, and now he’s decided to make the switch to the template-bodied Super Late Model. While Dutton has plenty of experience at the D-shaped short track, he’s going into SpeedFest as a 40-year-old rookie of sorts.
“This would be my first race ever in a Super Late Model,” Dutton told Speed51.com powered by JEGS. “I’ve run some Pro Late Model stuff and I’ve run the Outlaw the past four years, but I’ve got one practice session in this car so far. We’ll try it out and see what happens in the race.”
Dutton, a Tallahassee, Florida native, will be racing a car with his traditional No. 32 on the doors and roof. The car is owned by the race track owner and promoter at Crisp Motorsports Park, Wayne Lyle.
“We just got a deal together with Mr. Lyle who owns the track here at Cordele,” said Dutton. “He bought a car and we’ve been working on it a lot over the winter. We decided that we’re going to try to run SpeedFest and also the Southern Super Series this year.”
The veteran driver has run the last four years of his career at Crisp Motorsports Park, and has been racing for much of his life.
“I started racing go-karts when I was like eight years old and then I got into Legends cars for a while,” Dutton said. “Then we built a Pro Late Model and ran that at South Georgia Motorsports Park. When that place closed we went to Cordele, built an Outlaw car and we’ve been running there for a while now.”
While this will be Dutton’s first ever Super Late Model race, he still expects to have a pretty good showing. He said he still believes that he can run pretty well because of how many laps he has around that track.
“I obviously want to run well and put a good showing on and stay there until the end,” said Dutton. “Not getting torn up is the biggest thing obviously. That way we can run some more races. I think we have a pretty good car. I’ve got enough laps on the track. I just need to get used to the horsepower and the body differences between an Outlaw and a Super is a big change for me.”
This year’s CRA SpeedFest from Crisp Motorsports Park will take place on January 30-31 in Cordele, Georgia, and will air live on Speed51 TV. Those who can’t make it to the Georgia race track on January 31 can purchase the live pay-per-view broadcast for $27.99 now on Speed51.com.
-By Rob Blount, Speed51.com Southeast Editor – Twitter: @RobBlount
